Tag Archives: flood

The Gillard Government has announced its plans for funding the reconstruction after this month’s devastating floods. These include a flood levy on taxpayers earning more than $50,000 and cuts to various government programs, many of which are related to cutting emissions and developing renewable energy. The Solar Energy Society has estimated that $495 million will be cut from solar energy programs..
The irony here is inescapable. Ever-worsening and more frequent natural disasters are directly linked to human greenhouse gas emissions. Yet while the Federal Government continues subsidising fossil fuels – the cause of the problem – to the tune of billions of dollars per year, it cuts funding to the solutions – renewable energy and energy efficiency..
Some of that money cut from renewable energy will probably go towards rebuilding coal export infrastructure..
This is insanity. We continue to have proof that the big polluters call the shots with both major parties..
A petition has been launched calling for the fossil fuel industry to pay for the clean up rather than taxpayers and the renewable energy industry – please sign it here – http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/tax-polluters-for-climate-disasters/

Is there any relationship between the massive Queensland floods and global warming? Scientific opinion seems to be that warmer sea surface temperatures due to climate change (and hence more water vapour in the air), as well as a very strong LaNina with warmer waters off eastern and northern Australia, are both likely contributors to the record flooding..

On Wednesday the Fairfax press reported that: “Australia has been known for more than 100 years as a land of droughts and flooding rains, but what climate change means is Australia becomes a land of more droughts and worse flooding rains,” David Karoly, from Melbourne University’s school of earth sciences, said. Professor Karoly stressed individual events could not be attributed to climate change, “But the wild extremes being experienced by the continent were in keeping with scientists’ forecasts of more flooding associated with increased heavy rain and more droughts as a result of high temperatures and more evaporation””On some measures it’s the strongest La Nina in recorded history … [but] we also have record-high ocean temperatures in northern Australia which means more moisture evaporating into the air,” he said. “And that means lots of heavy rain..
“Further comments have been reported by Reuters:.
“I think people will end up concluding that at least some of the intensity of the monsoon in Queensland can be attributed to climate change,” said Matthew England of the Climate Change Research Center at the University of New South Wales in Sydney..
David Jones, head of climate monitoring and prediction at the Australia Bureau of Meteorology in Melbourne: “The first thing we can say with La Nina and El Nino is it is now happening in a hotter world,” he told Reuters, adding that meant more evaporation from land and oceans, more moisture in the atmosphere and stronger weather patterns. “So the El Nino droughts would be expected to be exacerbated and also La Nina floods because rainfall would be exacerbated,” he said, though adding it would be some years before any climate change impact on both phenomena might become clear..
Prominent U.S. climate scientist Kevin Trenberth said the floods and the intense La Nina were a combination of factors. He pointed to high ocean temperatures in the Indian Ocean near Indonesia early last year as well as the rapid onset of La Nina after the last El Nino ended in May. “The rapid onset of La Nina meant the Asian monsoon was enhanced and the over 1 degree Celsius anomalies in sea surface temperatures led to the flooding in India and China in July and Pakistan in August,” he told Reuters in an email. He said a portion, about 0.5C, of the ocean temperatures around northern Australia, which are more than 1.5C above pre-1970 levels, could be attributed to global warming. “The extra water vapor fuels the monsoon and thus alters the winds and the monsoon itself and so this likely increases the rainfall further,” said Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado..
In The Guardian, Prof Vicky Pope, head of climate change advice at the Met Office, said that as a general point, a warmer world is a wetter world. “As the average global temperature increases one would expect the moisture content of the atmosphere to rise, due to more evaporation from the sea surface. For every 1C sea surface temperature rise, atmospheric moisture over the oceans increases by 6-8%. Also in general, as more energy and moisture is put into the atmosphere [by warming], the likelihood of storms, hurricanes and tornadoes increases.”.
At Climate Progress, Joe Romm tells of his recent interbiew with Kevin Trenberth: “I find it systematically tends to get underplayed and it often gets underplayed by my fellow scientists. Because one of the opening statements, which I’m sure you’ve probably heard is “Well you can’t attribute a single event to climate change.” But there is a systematic influence on all of these weather events now-a-days because of the fact that there is this extra water vapor lurking around in the atmosphere than there used to be say 30 years ago. It’s about a 4% extra amount, it invigorates the storms, it provides plenty of moisture for these storms and it’s unfortunate that the public is not associating these with the fact that this is one manifestation of climate change. And the prospects are that these kinds of things will only get bigger and worse in the future.” That’s Dr. Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, on the warming-deluge connection..
An ACF Fact Sheet reports: “Recent scientific advice to the Queensland Government warned that the state would be threatened by higher flood levels from intense torrential downpours brought on by climate change. In 2010 the Scientific Advisory Group to the Queensland Government’s Inland Flooding Study advised that “an increase in rainfall intensity is likely” and “the available scientific literature indicates this increased rainfall intensity to be in the range of 3–10 per cent per degree of global warming”.

A group of concerned citizens protested outside the BHP office in Melbourne today, and presented the coal industry with a giant invoice for part of the cost of the unprecedented floods in Victoria and Queensland.

Spokesperson for the group Pablo Brait said, ”we’re presenting this invoice to the entire coal industry on behalf of the Australian taxpayer, charging them for part of the flood clean-up and the increased insurance costs all Australians will have to pay due to the impacts of global warming.”

“Scientists have been telling us for 25 years that our greenhouse gas emissions are increasing the incidence of extreme weather events such as floods, bushfires and drought. We are seeing this here in Australia and all over the world.”

“BHP is Australia’s largest coal miner and coal is our biggest source of carbon pollution. If we are going to avoid ever worsening disasters like severe bushfires and floods, then we need to urgently shift from antiquated and polluting coal energy to clean renewable energy sources.”

According to both surface and satellite measurements the year 2010 was the equal hottest and the wettest on record worldwide. The last decade was the hottest decade ever recorded. A report released by the Queensland Government in November 2010, the Inland Flood Study concluded that as the Earth warms, flood risk in QLD grows too.

“Our political leaders express their concern over the victims of the floods, and yet they continue to support the expansion of the coal power and coal export industries. This disgusting hypocrisy condemns more lives in future disasters and shows contempt for the victims of the floods.”

“How many more people need to lose their lives and homes before the state and federal governments stand up to the coal industry?”

“How much economic damage must the Australian economy sustain before the fossil fuel sector stops campaigning against action on climate change?”

“Shifting out of fossil fuels will save lives and help shield our economy from further shocks.” Mr Brait concluded.

Two excellent articles in today’s Age describe the increase in natural disasters caused by global warming, and the economic cost of last year’s bushfires.The calamities are upon us as the world warms

THEY are the extreme weather events that climate scientists have been warning about – the simultaneous catastrophes of flooding in Pakistan, wildfires in Russia and landslides in China.

Many scientists say these events are all unprecedented and that such disasters, taken together, are proof of climate change. They warn that widespread and devastating flooding will become more frequent and could be considered normal by the middle of the century.

Almost 14 million people have been affected by the torrential rains in Pakistan, and more than 1600 have died, making it a greater humanitarian disaster than the south Asian tsunami and recent earthquakes in Kashmir and Haiti combined, the United Nations says.Advertisement: Story continues below

In Russia, firefighters and soldiers were battling to stop wildfires from engulfing key nuclear sites while Prime Minister Vladimir Putin took to the air in a water-bombing plane to join the effort. Morgues in Moscow are overflowing as officials estimate 5000 have died in the worst heatwave in 130 years.

You don’t have to be Lord Stern to see how the costs of climate change are already compounding and spiralling, out of control.

Some costs are relatively benign – such as the devaluation of waterfront properties in Byron Bay as sea levels rise – a process starting in earnest whether estate agents like it or not.

Other costs are terrible, such as the conservative $4.4 billion figure put on last year’s Black Saturday fires by the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission, including insurance claims of $1.2 billion (property and vehicles), $1.1 billion spent by the Victorian Bushfires Reconstruction and Recovery Authority, $658 million in destroyed timber, 173 lives lost worth $645 million according to established formulae (not counting injuries) and about $593 million spent on firefighting (not counting volunteers).

Climate change features minimally in the Commission’s final report, handed down a fortnight ago. That is interesting in itself, because when he announced the inquiry the Premier, John Brumby, said everything would be on the table, including climate change.

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About YCAN

Yarra Climate Action Now is made up of people who want to see much stronger action on climate change. We are an independent community group based in the inner Melbourne suburbs of the City of Yarra. Find out more about YCAN...